West Ham making final Premier League preparations in Austrian training camp

West Ham are making their final Premier League preparations in Austria. Manuel Pellegrini’s West Ham will play Germany Bundesliga club Mainz and France Ligue 1 side Angers in their final Premier League preparations of the summer. The Hammers will open the league season on August 12 against Liverpool at Anfield.

Final Premier League preparations

West Ham have had a good preseason under new boss Pellegrini. The Hammers have won three and draw once in five preseason outings. The club is now ready to finish off the preseason in Austria with two matches against Bundesliga and Ligue 1 competition. In total, West Ham will spend four days in Austria training.

One player that is expected to play in West Ham’s final preseason matches is new goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski. The shot-stopper joined West Ham from Swansea for £7 million this summer. Fabianski takes over in goal for Joe Hart, who was sent back to Manchester City following his loan spell last season.

The new goalkeeper spoke to West Ham’s official website ahead of the Hammers’ four-day training regime in Austria outlining its importance.

“I think it’s all about getting right all the things we need to improve on,” Fabianski said. “We will put in more work on the tactical side of the game and then just getting sharper and sharper.

“That’s the final stage of the preparation and I think we can be quite happy with the work we have done so far.”

The goalkeeper made his Hammers’ debut in West Ham’s recent 2-1 preseason win over Ipswich.

“I thought we played well,” Fabianski said. “We won the game, that’s the main thing. For me personally, it was my first game after a bit of a break, but I think it was positive and I’m really looking forward to the next games.

“You could see we have a quality group. All the players put a lot of effort into Saturday’s game and you could tell it wasn’t easy because we just played three days before.

“In preseason there is a lot of hard work, but I think you can see there is quality in the group and hopefully we’ll get better and better with every single game and will be ready for the season.”

West Ham kick off the Premier League season against Liverpool on August 12.

Will West Ham challenge the European places under Pellegrini this season?